Serving Boone, Blowing Rock, Banner Elk, and other towns of the North Carolina High Country | Founded 05-05-05

|| High Country Press Newswire

March 6, 2008 issue

Avery Arts Council Announces New Website, Quilt Trail Workshop

The Avery County Arts Council is kicking off the year with a brand-new start. The arts council has changed its name to reflect its countywide mission and has launched a new website.

Website and Email Address

Click to www.averycountyartscouncil.org for a more informative and easier to navigate site that includes the membership form, a vendor registration form for this year’s Riverwalk Arts Festival and Street Dance, the Grassroots Grant application and a map and photos of the growing Avery County Quilt Trail project.

The council also has a new email address: info@averycountyartscouncil.org.

If you are a traditional artist in Avery County, the Avery County Arts Council would like to feature you in the upcoming Avery County Traditional Artist database. Contact the Arts Council so staff can help spread your talent.

Quilt Trail Workshop March 15

The Avery County Arts Council, with the help of the Banner Elk Tourism and Development Agency, is sponsoring a local project called the Avery County Quilt Trail. Many beautiful quilt squares are already up on local buildings, bringing splashes of color to the county’s roadsides. Vibrant quilt patterns are painted on prebuilt two-, four- and eight-foot wooden squares and installed on barns, public buildings, shops, and other appropriate buildings around the community. The Arts Council is working on a self-guided map to direct sightseers to these icons of tradition in their new role as public art. Each quilt square requires a team of volunteer painters and a willing property owner. The square can represent a family pattern from a beloved quilt or even something new.

The Arts Council is hosting Avery County’s first-ever Quilt Trail Workshop on Saturday, March 15, at 10:30 a.m. at the Senior Citizen Center in Newland. Barbara Webster, director of the Quilt Trail Project for Mitchell and Yancey counties, and members of the Avery County Quilt Trail Committee will be on hand to demonstrate and talk about the project. The workshop is free and open to the public. Space is limited and advance registration is recommended. Call the Arts Council at 828-898-4292 to reserve a space.